On a sunny and warm morning in early April 2014 a van carrying me and about a dozen other international journalists arrives at a wide and leafy street in São Paulo's exclusive and affluent neighbourhood of Jardim Europa.

Wow. I've arrived on the Avenue Montaigne in the heart of Paris' poshest shopping district. Joseph and Giorgio Armani stores are opposite. Where do I recognise the Hotel Plaza Athénée's red canopies from? Ahh, of course. Carrie Bradshaw came here in the last two episodes of Sex & the City.

You read a lot about 'can't live without products' in the beauty world, but honestly, there's nothing I couldn't do without. I might scare small children (and myself when going to the loo in the middle of the night) but my world wouldn't grind to a halt if I didn't have my make-up bag.

Pastels and spring have a mundane, predictable relationship. In a similar vein to the floral prints for spring's sister non-surprise, designers are naturally drawn back to soft unicorn colours - those to brighten and lighten the April skies.

This is the house that Heidi built. We're sitting in Lavender House on Gayton Road, Heidi Locher's London home, set far back from the road behind a high gate, a temple to Modernism hidden between the Victorian walls of her Hampstead neighbours.

Christian Dior's day has been saved, its reputation reignited and the Parisian equilibrium restored by Raf Simons. Hoorah! Upon D-Day, the presentation of his first ready-to-wear collection for Dior, the Belgian served the first point of this season's Parisian fashion feud.

North Korea's imports of luxury goods amounted to $584.8million last year. This is a clear jump from previous year's statistics, as the total for 2009 was $322.5million and in 2010 it was $446.2million.

The waist is back. If you've been hiding under a rock recently and missed the memo, the waist has made a marked recent return to the catwalks, squeezing out beautiful hourglass from even tower blocks of fashion. A surprise it is not given the enormous success of Mad Men that swept the waist in all its glory back into fashion's frontline.